Showing posts with label quilt-as-you-go. Show all posts

Sunday, May 29, 2022

May's Table Scraps potholders

I made several scrappy potholders for the May Table Scraps Challenge. The colours were hunter green and sage and the theme was squares.

Finding the perfect pattern

On Mondays, I usually link up my latest post to Beth's Monday Making linking party. Last week, I fell in love with her Chevron Potholders. I watched her video and then decided that I would make a couple of them in green.

These are my first two. There is lots of green in them, and some of those greens are sage or forest 😊

Green chevron potholders - the first two

It was only after I finished the first two potholders that I went back to the instructions and realised that there should be squares involved! Of course I didn't clue in that the potholders are square! So I made another potholder with pieced squares to make the chevron pattern. They are now green and square but don't really look like chevrons any more. 😁

The chevron pattern is sort of lost but it is pretty!

Things I learned from watching and using Beth's technique.

Instead of using batting, Beth used old towels. That is truly brilliant😀 I have many towels that are stained with hair dye. It's a perfect use for them because you don't need loft, just a layer of protection!

Using an old towel instead of batting

Beth attaches her binding from the back. I followed her instructions in the video and they came out well, but for my next potholder, I'm going to watch the video that she made specifically for attaching the binding from the back. I'm sure that she'll have a few tips worth watching.

The back is quilt-as-you-go

When I realised that my white thread was showing up on the back, I decided to switch to a green one.

The first chevron potholder

The second chevron potholder

Since I love blue, I decided to make a blue potholder. I have such pretty blue fabrics 😊 I haven't attached the binding yet because I want to learn more about Beth's binding technique. I'm waiting until after the Conversations show opens before getting back to it.

A blue chevron potholder awaiting the binding

Other things I learned

My chevrons didn't form a straight line in the middle like Beth's did, so I stopped trying and used strips of different widths.
I'm usually more conservative when choosing fabric colours such that if they are supposed to be green, then I only use green fabrics with no other colours on them. I changed it up and I'm really happy with the results. As long as there was some green in the fabric, that was good enough for me :-)
There are many squirrels in this potholder project. It was nice to make things other than what was on my list.

Sunday, April 01, 2018

March finishes and April beginnings

I've had a great time with a friend. A weekend full of playing, gabbing and eating. Of course the playing involved textile - and even paint!

Colour Vie Pigment System

In the fall, Gunnel Hag was a guest speaker at the September Out of the Box meeting. She is a textile artist who became allergic to commercial dies. She worked with a company to develop the Colour Vie Pigment System which is water-based and eco-friendly. I bought a starter set at the meeting and was hoping to visit my girlfriend, the artist, to try these out. Well my girlfriend is visiting this weekend and we've been playing with Colour Vie.

We did some experimenting with the colours and this is my practice fabric. I think I'm really going to like making marks with Colour Vie.

Trying out and making marks with Colour Vie

Do you remember the FMQ project below from my Learning Quilt-Along ? Lyne and I have started painting little bits of it. It's pretty slow going.

The back of the wholecloth quilt

The blank canvas that we are painting :-)

The painting is coming along. I'll share this with you in a future post.

Starry Bright Sky - Block 3, Origami

For our third month, Alida had us create a star with fabric doing origami.

Origami star

Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along

I've joined Angela Walter's Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along. I've missed a few weeks but hope to catch up, or just to do them when I can. I was hoping to make a quick Quilt-as-you-go quilt based on Angela's suggested quilt top, but that's not going to happen. I am doing a Quilt-as-you-go technique but only with solid blocks.

Every week Angela presents two FMQ techniques. Week 6, when I started, was Machine Quilting Wavy Lines & Serpentines.

Wavy lines block

Back of the wavy line block

I've been drawing the serpentine block for a couple of days. This one is very difficult for me.

One Monthly Goal

I'm hoping to finish my Postcard from Sweden quilt top by the end of the month. Technically it needs to be ready for April 3rd and then quilted by April 11th, but that's only 10 days away....so who knows.

I do have a more recent picture of what is done so far.

April OMG -

Postcard from Sweden quilt top

Great news! Susan of Midweek Makers featured my quilt top on her colourful quilts to herald spring! Thanks Susan 😊

Fibre Fling 7

Fibre Fling 7

To-Do Tuesday: This week I have to finish getting ready for Fibre Fling 7.

I have two quilt labels to sew on the back of my quilts and I have to prepare the bags to delivery the quilts in.

What I learned

I really enjoyed making different marks on the practice fabric with Colour Vie. The medium is really great to work with.
However, painting all of those really small sections of my wholecloth quilt reminds me too much of the paint-by-number that I ruined when I was a kid. There was no way that I was using more than one brown to paint the ceiling of the Last Supper!
There are a lot of very fiddly little areas to paint (like the paint-by-number), although I least I get to choose my own colours.
The Starry Bright Ski Origami block was very difficult to make. I learned years ago that I don't do origami! That's my son's strength, so I did the first part of the folding and he completed it.
I am looking forward to doing some of Alida's extra textured 3-D blocks.
I'm really enjoying Angela Walter's videos of FMQ designs. I've always had problems with "S" curves, which she calls serpentines. I'm sure that if I practice them enough that I'll get them. I start off well but eventually the echoing either starts getting flat or too curly 😊
I decided that since I'm starting the FMQ challenge late, that I would do a quilt-as-you-go quilt. It's going to be fairly simple, and I can join each quilted block (of different pinks and purples) once I'm done.
I'm following Jera Brandvig's instructions in Quilt As-You-Go Made Modern, for joining the blocks.

Friday, March 06, 2015

Finishing quilted gifts

Although I haven't been blogging much, I have spent a lot of time completing projects (and of course starting many others – but that's for another post!)

Here are two projects that I completed.

Batik Lap Quilt

Batik lap quilt

This quilt was begun over a year ago at a quilting retreat. I don’t often use pre-cut fabric but had gotten these two packages of batik Mini-blueberry Pie Charm Squares by Timeless at a really good price. The colours turned out to be absolutely stunning.

At the time, I was just starting FMQ, so the finished top sat around until I was confident enough to quilt it. I finally quilted it this fall using a lovely stencil. Since the colours are very busy, the quilting shows up well only when looked at up close. I used a lovely shiny blue Madeira polyester thread (Polyneon No. 40). I really like the way it came out.

What I learned:

Quilt label

When purchasing this type of pre-cut packages, there will probably not be any left-over fabric for the binding (oops!). Luckily, Jan, the owner of The Pickle Dish in Carleton Place was coming to our guild meeting, so I sent her a picture of the quilt and she brought me three beautiful fabrics to choose from.
My quilts get quilted when I’m ready. Trying to hurry things is asking for trouble.
I know that I don’t do deadlines well. This was a supposed to be a wedding gift but it turned out to be a first wedding anniversary gift! I’m sure that it's going to a good home :-)
I can’t remember where I read about this technique for making a label but the person used a nice font, printed the message and then used a light box to copy the message onto fabric. I think that it turned out well.

Quilt-as-you-go Baby Quilt

Front and back of the QAYG quilt

The other completed project is a baby quilt. It was a Quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) technique that I found on a blog, made by ChrissieD. It’s a QAYG Wholecloth Stripy Quilt. The idea is to use one wholecloth fabric for the front of the quilt, while quilting strips together on the back of the quilt. It’s a great idea, but I didn't really have a fabric that I wanted to use for a quilt top – so I just reversed the concept.

I had a lot of fun putting all of these pretty flannel strips together. In theory, a QAYG quilt is pretty much completed when it’s all pieced, but there was no way I could just leave it quilted with only straight lines.

Quilted flower

Quilted sun

I used some stencils to guide my free-motion quilting (FMQ). Some of the quilting doesn't really show much because of the busyness of the fabric, but it just had to be done!

Here’s one of the flowers that showed up as well as a sun.

What I learned:

I used flannel for both the front and back of the quilt, as well as a light batting. Personally I think that it’s too thick.
Next time I will either not use a batting or use a cotton on one side. I would love to create a real wholecloth quilt with this technique. Check out ChrissieD’s website to see her stunning quilt.

This post is linked to Needle & Thread Thursday, Link-a-Finish Friday, Keep It Simple Make It Fun (KISMIF) and Can I get a Whoop Whoop?. Just posted on Free Motion Mavericks. Check out the fun!

Friday, December 20, 2013

Another Cute Mug Rug

I'm glad to say that the production of mug rugs has slowed to a crawl, but unfortunately, I still have a few more to make. Through a Quilting group on Linked In, I found this wonderful pattern for my last few mug rugs by Elizabeth Wyatt (www.ebethwyatt.com).

Mug rug and wall hanging in my office

Here's the link to the Stripy Christmas Ornament Hot Pad. As the name suggests, the original pattern is for a hot pad, but I adapted it for a mug rug by only using batting and skipping the insulated lining. This project uses a quilt-as-you-go technique so that really, the most difficult part is putting on the binding. I also had to adjust the top part of the ornament since I didn't include a hanging loop. Check out her tutorial on the link above. It's really great.

As well as planning, following instructions is not my forte (except at work, of course!) - so I ended up cutting the batting and backing fabric first and then sewing directly onto the batting as instructed. One advantage to doing this was that I was able to use shorter strips for the edges of the ornament. The disadvantage was that the backing ended up a little smaller than the batting - so I suggest that you cut the backing a little bigger than the batting and then trim before putting on the binding.

Christmas Ornament Mug Rug

This is a great little project that could probably be adapted to other shapes. In one of my previous mug rugs, I had put together a triangle that looked like a Christmas tree. This would be a great shape to use this technique with.

Stripped Christmas Tree

What I learned:

If possible, use bias tape or cut out your own. I didn't and the mug rug doesn't really lie flat. Not a huge deal since it is only a mug rug and you are supposed to put something on it which will make it lie flat!
If you cut the batting and backing first, you may want to cut the backing a little larger so that it doesn't get too small. You can always trim it before adding the binding.

Update - I made 2 more Christmas Ornament Mug Rugs, in green this time. I was able to find bias tape and it did help somewhat with the flatness. I did make one of them larger but then I forgot to trim it! Here are the results: